Marriage

On Commitment and… Cats?

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For my Eliza Jane, and all my feline loves, on Pet Memorial Day

ElizaChristmas2I’ve been missing my big kitty Eliza Jane, whom I lost back in February due to complications from diabetes and what was likely kidney cancer. As fiancé Steve and I get closer to the wedding, and thus to moving to a new home together, I’ve grown wistful thinking about leaving behind my little purple house and all the memories it holds.

When I moved to Virginia, I arrived first with two of my cats in tow, Roscoe (also dearly departed in 2013) and Eliza Jane. My big girl had had a tough road trip, complete with car-sickness that earned her Roscoe’s usual spot in the front passenger seat. As I set her carrier down in the foyer of our new home, she let out a plaintive wail that echoed through the whole empty house. She calmed quickly once our (her) furniture and things arrived, with their familiar smells and textures. She was only three years old then, so most of the memories we made together are bound up with this place.

Eliza 2Eliza wasn’t an easy cat. Neither was she, by traditional standards, a beautiful cat: she was overweight for much of her life, though her head and legs remained tiny, rendering her proportions out of balance. Her short fur was coarse, her tail average, neither long nor particularly expressive. With asymmetrical coloring and a lopsided mustache, she sported a perpetually wide-eyed, startled expression (the cat equivalent, maybe, of resting-bitch-face?) and rarely exhibited the zen-like contentment many cats do. After a cancerous growth returned the third time on one of her back legs, we had it amputated, and she became a 21-pound tripod.

And though a sweet (at least to me) kitty who grew ever more cuddly and expressive as she aged, she was always reserved if not aloof, and, if we’re honest, inconvenient. As she got older, she had increasing trouble managing the hop into the litter box, and she struggled to keep herself clean. There were butt baths, lots of cat-bed washings, almost daily mopping. Sometimes I felt like the house always smelled vaguely of kitty accident. And it grew expensive, buying special food to manage her diabetes, boxes of extra-large pee pads, syringes and vials of insulin.

But I loved my Liza Belle. And when I adopted her, I’d made a commitment to care for her and love her for life.

Elizaonshoulder3Love, commitment, devotion: it’s not always convenient, not always pleasant. Sometimes love is hard, annoying, even smelly. It’s real. It’s being glad to do tough things, put up with inconvenience, because the love outweighs the irritation. Because that is the love, the practice of love: being there, being of service, being as much a constant as possible even in the face of fear, failure, decline. Being a constant presence, a constant heart.

In the last years of her life, Eliza was hard to fall in love with, and she and Steve did not bond as deeply as he has with my other two cats. I understood: he hadn’t known her as I did. When I looked at Eliza, I didn’t just see her matted belly and her kitty dander, experience her cool reserve. I saw the kitten who used to ride on my shoulder around the kitchen. The cat who played fetch and chased the laser light under the closet door, where she thought it lived. I saw the kitty who loved to cuddle her big brother, the kitty who’d warned me of an intruder by hissing in the middle of the night. I saw the—yes, beautiful—cat who’d borne up under so much and brought me so much joy.

Elizakitten2Eliza was some-kinda-cute as a kitten, for sure, but “cute” was all I really knew when I committed to adopting her back then. I didn’t know then whether she’d be cuddly or cool, how she might grow and change, what pleasures and pains and challenges would come. Once I said yes, though, my commitment didn’t depend on her staying cute, or being a perfect cat, or an easy one. Once I committed to her, we were in it, for life, together.

The truth is, the longer I loved her, the more beautiful she became to me, the more of her beauty I could see. It was only through committing to the long haul that I was blessed to get to know her fully and deeply, and the more I knew, the more I saw how beautiful she truly was. When I looked at her, I saw all the shared history, all the love; I saw her young and old, healthy and ill, cuddly and cranky. It was all there, and the layers made me love her all the more.

Even now, after she’s gone from this world, she keeps teaching me. Cheers, my lovely Eliza. And thank you for showing me the wonder, complexity, and meaning of real beauty and commitment.

Eliza and me: one of our last pictures together

Eliza and me: one of our last pictures together

Into Every Life…

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“True love is beyond the physical and romantic. True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, and will not be. Life isn’t about learning how to weather the storm, but learning how to dance in the rain.”

I found several versions of this quotation in Steve’s mother’s apartment when we packed her things to move her to a new space–one typed, one in calligraphy–framed and on display. I don’t know the origin of these few sentences (the interwebs claim Taylor Swift, but I’m pretty sure typewriters and onion skin paper predate the nineties-born singer). The last puzzles me a little: isn’t dancing in the rain a way of weathering the storm?

Still, the sentiments struck a chord, as they reflect some basic truths about what I’ve come to know of love. Maybe the last one is about attitude: the difference being whether one focuses on the storm, or the dancing.

So, shall we dance?

dancing-in-the-rain

FsFTB is keeping it short today to devote time to making a few organization/navigation upgrades to the blog this week. Back on Friday as usual!

Summer Reading: Books for Lovers

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BookshelfBased on the number of women populating the pedicure chairs at the salon yesterday, summer has arrived for most of us, even if the calendar doesn’t declare it official until late next month. Colorful toes peek out of sandals, peonies bloom out in frothy bursts, and otherwise sun-lethargic cats shed fur like mad. One of the best things about these long, bright days for a bibliophile like me: time for summer reading.

It seems even those who don’t read much other times of year dive into books while on the beach, or on the plane they take to get there. My own summer reading is a pretty mixed bag: memoirs, literary novels, nature writing, cheesy mysteries. Should you be searching for some books to add to your summer booklist, here are my top five picks of books for lovers. Continue reading →

Let’s Take a Hike

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Lady-slipper

Lady-slipper

It’s a beautiful spring day, the kind with just enough crisp in the breeze to start out with a light jacket, just enough sun in the sky to later slip it off. The Appalachian mountains call me this time of year. On the forest floor lady-slippers and trillium bloom yellow and pink, while high above, tall trees re-sheathe their limbs in green. Fat robins rustle in the nearby brush. Sun-dappled shade filters through the canopy, lighting a flame azalea on a far hillside, making it look for all the world like the mystical, ethereal burning bush.

I grew up going camping with my family and Girl Scout troop, and more and more in recent years I’ve sought again the solace of the trees. Or maybe I’m seeking more smarts—science tells us that time spent in nature both reduces stress levels and improves cognitive function. Elizabeth Kwak-Heffernan, in a May 2012 article in Backpacker magazine, cites a University of Rochester study (2010) that showed even 15 minute nature walks gave rise to a greater sense of “vitality”; she also describes an environmental neuroscience project that shows how “exposure to nature causes significant, measurable changes to the brain” that “let you think more clearly, focus more acutely, and perform to your maximum cognitive ability.” Continue reading →

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Bratty Bride Reality Check Needs a Hug

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Lately I’ve been feeling overwhelmed.

Many of my days recently have begun well before the sun crests over the mountains, waking at four or five AM wired and restless, my brain making lists, sifting through the worries piling up like student papers, filing and re-filing any number of questions and possible answers: What are we going to do for ceremony music? When do we introduce Steve’s dog to my cats? Are the bridesmaids’ dresses I selected going to work?

Then I feel silly, and guilty. After all, I remind my inner Bratty Bride (she is quite the worrywart), marrying the love of one’s life is a privilege, not a pain. A quick look at the world outside my sphere reveals tragic events genuinely worthy of worry and grief: an Amtrak train derails outside Philadelphia, killing 8 passengers and injuring many more. A second devastating earthquake strikes Nepal, decimating the land and its citizens.

To sit and fret over the fact my hairdresser of three years is moving to South Dakota in June is…well, I can’t even even finish that sentence. There’s no comparison. It’s too absurd.

Yet a wise friend of mine once observed that while comparing (mis)fortunes can offer much-needed perspective, your own experiences are still real and valid, and you need not deny your own feelings just because others have feelings too (even ones bigger and harder to bear). And it’s true that some of the decisions we’re facing aren’t exactly trivial: How do we stay within budget and still include everyone we want to include? Will we keep separate checking accounts or merge our finances? Where are we going to live after we’re married? And whose sofa stays, whose goes? Continue reading →

Weddings for Equality: Vendor Showcase

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I recently had the opportunity to model for the first Weddings for Equality Wedding Vendor Showcase, held at the new Hilton Garden Inn at South Peak in Roanoke. The event was organized by Sarah Pendleton of Pumpernickle Pickle Catering, and it was a great success, with over 25 vendors from Roanoke and the New River Valley, and over 30 pre-registered participants plus additional walk-in visitors.

My relationship to the event was a bit different as a model than as a bride shopping for vendors (we pretty much have that all sewn up, YAY!). Still, I was able to wander for a few minutes between being styled by the hair and makeup artists of Thomas Dunn Studios and getting dressed for the fashion show. I was excited to see several of our selected vendors there, including Mark Frye of Creative Occasions, whose flowers were exquisite as always; our wedding photographer Noah Magnifico, who captured a few great iPhone snapshots; and our planner Michelle Robb of The Wedding Planner magazine and The Perfect Fairytale. There were also informative displays by the Roanoke Diversity Center, Hollins University, Fashionista Roanoke, and numerous other wedding vendors, including bridebook, Les Cheveux Salon, Green Hill House, and more.

Pumpernickel Pickle +
Goddesses! Photo, Noah Magnifico
A George’s bouquet

Continue reading →